I have a beautiful journal, it is leather bound, the pages are a creamy yellow colour. The reason I like this journal is that it has a little place at the top of each page to insert the appropriate date and time, so you only need to write in it when appropriate, I used to use a page per day diary but that would often frustrate me, some days I needed more than a page, sometimes I might not write anything down for days.

I am not a daily journal keeper. I’m not a morning person either, yet some how in the last fortnight I have found myself getting up at increasingly more obscene hours of the morning to expand on some recieved work from the Lady Hekate.

Im very organised, knowing my weaknesses and how totally disfunctional I am at silly o clock in the morning I make sure I have everything ready the night before, candles, meditation stool, no floor for me at the moment I am afraid due to a rather nasty ankle injury that seems to be taking forever to heal, tarot cards if neccessary, journal and pen.

The very first thing I do is write the date, moon phase and time of the work in that little slot at the top of the page that I am so fond of. I always start a new page, even if the previous page only has a few lines on it, each peice of work, each day in fact to my mind requires a clean sheet. I always do this, no exceptions. Its too easy to start scribbling other wise in years to come you will look back and wonder when the notes referred to. Its also a good ready reckoner for spotting patterns too, you can see if your more sensitive to recieved work, for example, at certain times of the month or even times of the day. You can use this to better plan any subsequent work. Actually the uses are too many for me to go into here. That isn’t what this post is about.

So there I was this morning, I sat and wrote the appropriate headings, did the work that I needed to do, picked up my journal and looked around for my pen. The resounding message from todays work was, “It’s not enough to just write about it, you must experience it”, I felt it was worthy of note for a number of reasons. For myself, as somebody who draws heavily from academic texts it can be way too easy to fixate on my bookish nature and not actually “do” or “be”. Now some may argue that sincere and heartfelt research in the persuit of gnosis is an act of magick in its own right. But I disagree with that to some extent, somethings you have to actually do to really understand the mechanics, take driving a car for example, you can read a manual, study the highway code, you can even pass the theory test; but you really do not understand what driving is until you get behind the wheel and you can only comprehend the finer nuances with repeated practise and experience.

I grappled for the pen in the half light, and it wasn’t there, I moved the journal, it wasn’t there, I felt under and around my meditation stool and yes, you got it, it wasn’t there. I decided to finish up, find the pen which I had convinced myself must have just rolled under a chair or something. I looked everywhere, I even went out into the garden, wondering if one of my feline friends has snuck in whilst I was away with the fairies and stolen my pen and taken it away to play with. Three quarters of an hour I looked for that damn pen, eventually I laughed and gave up; after all perhaps for today I would just experience it rather than write about it.

I shuffled upstairs with a coffee in my hand, wandered into the bathroom where my daughter was cleaning her teeth. Mummy she said, through a foamy mouth of minty paste, why have you got a pen in your hair?